My great aunt (my father's mother's sister), whose name was Beatrice, would've had her 95th birthday this Saturday, but after a brief illness last week she died As far as I know, she was my oldest living relative so few steps removed on either side. But there are a lot of relatives only hazily known to me in Iowa. She was born in Iowa in February of 1920 to parents both born in Norway.

My last strong memory of her is from July 2010 when I paid a visit with my uncle and aunt in Kansas (I was visiting with them briefly after a trip to the Grand Canyon at the time). Her husband requested my uncle and I try to install some new lightbulbs very high off the ground in a particular room. Following much commotion involving a ladder, I think we managed to do it. Beatrice was in the middle of her 90th year at that time. She seemed to me to be more spry and mentally alert than lots of people are at 60, even some at 50. I wondered what her secret to eternal youth might've been. She showed no signs I could see of anything bad either physically or mentally.

My father in his retirement has made many trips to Kansas (not a short distance) in recent years, as Beatrice was the last "living link" to (as in, sister of) his own mother, who died in 2007 but whose last five or more years were affected by loss of memory. Come to think of it, that was the other impression I had of Beatrice in 2010: She was amazingly similar to her older sister, my grandmother, in appearance, in voice, in personality. To see her and to hear her speak was like stepping back into 1990s Iowa for me, a time I remember fondly.

To live and remain and alert into one's mid-90s is a blessing. If I live that long, I'll live to see the 2080s. That's a lot of time left to get things done....